Our seventeenth Prosecuting Attorney, Ezra S. Dodd was a distinguished lawyer and Civil War veteran who was born in Michigan and who came to live in Toledo during the early 1870's. He joined the Union Army in 1861 at the age of eighteen and served throughout the was with distinction. In 1868, he was admitted to the Ohio Bar after which settled in Toledo. In the 1870's, he built a distinguished legal career and in 1878 married Anne Acklin with whom he had three children. One of them was Martin S. Dodd, himself a distinguished Toledo lawyer who graduated from the University of Michigan Law School in 1902 and who, like his father, enjoyed a very distinguished career.

At the age of 39 years E.S. Dodd was elected prosecuting Attorney in 1881 and served until 1884, when he was elected to the Ohio Senate. He then moved to the developing Oklahoma territory for several years, returning to Lucas County when ill health plagued him. He died in 1892 at the age of 50 years. At his death, his colleagues in the Lucas County Bar Association paid tribute to him:"He was a man of brilliant intellect, an affectionate husband and father, a faithful and genial friend, and an honorable gentleman." [Scribner, Harvey, Memoirs of Lucas County 1910. p. 437].